Welcome

These slides available at: https://pm0kjp.github.io/rmedicine_2025_education_panel/slides/r_education_panel.html

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Panel Today

Panel convener: Joy Payton

Additional Panelists:

  • Ray Balise
  • Silvia Canelón
  • Meghan Harris
  • Ted Laderas

We’ll have a few questions to get started but we want to engage with you, so please use chat liberally!

Panelist Ray Balise

Raymond R. Balise, PhD

Associate Professor of Biostatistics and Bioinformatics

  • Teaches classes for the Division of Biostatistics and Bioinformatics at the University of Miami
    • Survey of Statistical Computing
    • Software Tools for Reproducible Research
    • Data Science and Machine Learning for Health Research
  • Mostly graduate students studying public health, biostatistics, nursing, psychology
  • Specializes in asynchronous instruction using R packages like learnr and gradethis as well as synchronous online instruction using tools like Zoom and Posit.Cloud.

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Panelist Silvia Canelón

Silvia Canelón, PhD

Headshot of Silvia Canelón with a smile, tan complexion, dark eyes, and dark long wavy hair styled to one side. She's wearing a navy blazer over a navy and white striped top.

Panelist Meghan Harris

Meghan Santiago Harris, MPH

Data Scientist at the Prostate Cancer Clinical Trials Consortium

  • Author of The Tidy Trekker Website and Blog

  • Self-taught data scientist and R package developer with a formal educational background in Public Health and Epidemiology.

  • Currently a Public Health/Data Science mentor at The University At Buffalo School of Public Health and Health Professions for undergraduate students.

  • Favorite method of “instruction” is written articles/walkthroughs and talks of all kinds.

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Panelist Ted Laderas

Ted Laderas, PhD

  • I’ve worked with many different kinds of adult learners: clinicians, bioinformaticians, biologists, finance, social scientists, engineers, and educators
  • Currently Director of Training and Community for Office of the Chief Data Officer, Fred Hutch Cancer Center
  • Recovering academic; focus is on workforce training and psychological safety

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Panelist Joy Payton

Joy Payton, MSs

(For 2 more weeks) Manager of Data Education, Arcus Initiative, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia

  • Teach workshops / short courses in data science (R, Python, SQL, ML, AI, NLP, etc.) for biomedical researchers and MD Fellows at CHOP and beyond
  • Assists in Global Health Informatics efforts (Botswana, Dominican Republic, Panamá)
  • Occasional adjunct professor / teach for O’Reilly

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Question 1

Vibe coding and using LLMs to write code is enjoying a lot of press these days. Is it still necessary to teach people to write R code, and if so, how much?

Question 2

The title of this panel mentions “interesting times”. What is making your work as an educator particularly interesting these days, whether that’s good or bad?

Question 3

What are some of the tools and methods you find most effective to get people to use their skills and retain their use?

Your Questions!

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